and a few more were contemporaries of the poet, but the rest of the
circle consisted mainly of men who had reached middle age--dullards,
perhaps, who condescended to clever adolescence, whom Chatterton
certainly mocked bitterly enough in satires which he wrote apparently
for his own private satisfaction, but whom he nevertheless took
considerable pains to conciliate as being men of substance who could
lend books and now and then reward the Muse with five shillings.
For Burgum the poet invented, and pretended to derive from numerous
authorities (some of which are wholly imaginary), a magnificent
pedigree showing him descended from a Simon de Seyncte Lyse _alias_
Senliz Earl of Northampton who had come over with the Conqueror. To
this he appended a portion of a poem not included in this edition,
entitled the 'Romaunte of the Cnyghte', composed by John de Bergham
about A.D. 1320. It was some years before Mr. Burgum applied to the
College of Heralds to have his pedigree ratified, but when he did so
he was informed that there had never been a de Bergham entitled to
bear arms.

With a second instalment of the genealogical table were copies of
the poems called _The Tournament_ and _The Gouler's_ (i.e. Usurer's)
_Requiem_, which are printed in this volume. Mr. Burgum was completely
taken in, and, exulting in his new-found dignity, acknowledged the
announcement of his splendid birth with a present of five shillings.
It is worthy of notice that the pedigree made mention of a certain
Radcliffe Chatterton de Chatterton, but Burgum's suspicions were not
aroused by the circumstance.

In July 1765, that is to say when the boy was aged about 13, the
authorities of Colston's Hospital apprenticed him to John Lambert, a
Bristol attorney. He had chosen the calling himself, but it was not